Kodak reports increasing professional film sales

[larrydressler]

<p>I lost my last E6 lab here not to the fact that they did not have enough business but to a lease problem where when they moved to the new location the Walgreen's had a no compete clause in the lease as they were the Main store in the strip mall and the company was doing the processing as a side business they were an Ad agency. 5 people went unemployed. :(</p>

 

[peterbcarter]

<blockquote>

<p>There is no good reason to hand-develop color films.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Finger prints and scratches. I don't like them. Companies are lowering costs which means employees are not paid enough to give a s**t. It shows.</p>

[waldo_lee]

<p>Eric wrote "There is no good reason to hand-develop color films. Unlike B&W films, color negative and transparency films were designed to be machine-processed, and you can't do a better job hand-developing them as opposed to running them through a processor." Though I mostly agree with most of what you said, I don't agree that there's no reason to hand develop color. If you live a long ways from an E-6 lab--which I do--then hand-developing can give you a same day turnaround. I've needed that for professional work. Secondly, hand-developing (actually Jobo) can afford a significant savings. Thirdly, a lot of machine developing--especially C41--really sucks: scratches, dirt, careless cutting, etc. If you live in a major city, you can probably find a decent lab. Out in the sticks you spend a lot of time waiting for the mail.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Yes my friend who lives here in town who was 100% digital 2 months ago is now shooting MF and developing C-41 at home. He has never processed film of any type before in his life. I do his B&W for him. Od but his wife works at a Walgreens C-41 lab and after a few rolls there even by his wife he gave up on them because they don't keep the chems up to snuff. One roll looked like bleach bypass from them.</p>

[rossb]

<p> Encouraging pod cast but I guess I am not convinced that things are turning around for Kodak film. I hope that Kodak sticks around however. </p>

[User_502260]

<p>Go to <a href="http://www.orwona.com">www.orwona.com</a>.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>My hope is that if they do sell it off someone with sense keeps the Film part going. Funny thing is the Film part made money yes lesser amounts or equal but it made money. the market for 35mm Slide film is almost gone. I know that but the buildings machines and taxes are payed... It has though the potential for someone who has to not report to share holders and also the city to keep some type of production going. Will some idiot do that? You never know a few idiots are building rockets to the moon without NASA. :)</p>

<p> The worst that will happen? It dies. The best it lives.. Such is life..</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Hey Jeff thanks for the link. Message me with some results. I will try to look up other peoples results. I have used movie film stocks for years.... .... I used to get XX for about 3-5 cents a foot short ends.. seems no short ends and we know what happened to Plus-X movie film.</p>

[ian_gordon_bilson]

<p>When terms like 'Artsy Fartsy" start turning up in a thread,you know it's time to quit.<br>

The thread,that is.</p>

[francois_p._garnier]

<p>Hi,<br /> @ Jeff Spirer: I've contacted Kodak and asked about the numbers: The Kodak rep. confirmed that they have indeed this year higher<strong> sales numbers, more volume</strong> than last year.</p>

<p>@ Doug Harl: 1. If you had looked for the last years at Kodaks balance sheets you would have seen that the Film, Finishing and Entertainment group at Kodak has always been <strong>profitable</strong>. They have always earned money with film, RA-4 paper, photochemistry etc.<br /> For for many years now they are making huge losses in their <strong>digital</strong> business. There they do burn millions of bucks each quarter. They have used the profits from film to compensate the losses in their digital business. Without the film profits Kodak most probably has been insolvent some time ago.<br /> The film group at Kodak would perform much better without this 'raping' and profit squeezing by the digital business.<br /> Kodaks major problem is the digital business, not film.</p>

<p>2. Glass plates are still produced by bigger companies: Agfa-Gevaert and Ilford are producing them on a regular basis.</p>

<p>3. Your 'doom and gloom' statement about color film photography clearly indicates your lack of market knowledge: 95% of the current film market is color film, 5% is BW.<br /> And then there is the huge market of color negative RA-4 paper. A classic product of analogue photography, which is even <strong>growing</strong>. Most of the digital shots which are printed are printed on RA-4 paper (via online services), not on inkjet.<br /> Fuji is the market leader here, followed by Kodak. A sound, profitable business. And it is no technical problem to coat film and photopaper on the same coating machines. Some companies are doing exactly this for decades.</p>

<p>4. What do you think is the field with the biggest growth rates in the whole photo industry (digital and analogue)?<br /> It is the toy camera movement, Lomos, Holgas etc. .There you have growth rates from 30% to 100% p.a., depending on the country you look at. No other segment in the photo industry has such high growth rates. There are already more than 1 million of these photographers worldwide, which have exposed about 20 million rolls of film last year. And they are shooting color, and especially like slide film (one of the reasons slide film will stay).<br /> This year about 1,2 million new cameras of these types are expected to be sold worldwide. Every year new camera types are introduced, currently more than 30 different models are offered by different manufacturers.<br /> I've had recently a long talk about this subject with a market analyst.</p>

<p>4. Your prophecies about future film prices: This nonsense is told now for more than 10 years. And, did it happen that film prices get through the roof? No, it did not happen. Some films are even cheaper compared to ten years before if you calculate inflation.<br /> Sales volumes of photo film are now about 15% of the record value in 2001. The crash in photo film sales lies <strong>behind</strong> us, it is in the past, not in the future. And some segments already have stabilised. Both Ilford and Adox reported increasing film sales in 2010. Some segments have significantly increasing sales.</p>

[User_502260]

<p>I forgot whether Double X is still available at The Film Emporium. I might try to buy a little more Plus-X in 120 if I can find it. The 100 foot rolls of Plus-X still around look very expensive.</p>

[wblynch]

<p>Well Kodak's CEO came from Hewlett-Packard. Looking at the cast of miscreants that have been in and out of HP and their track records is it any wonder that Perez's strategy for EK is failing?</p>

<p>I'm encouraged by the general growth of film use and interest world-wide. I predict there will be a push back on the motion picture front as well.</p>

<p>Organics rule the future.</p>

 

[Ken Katz]

So the film, photofinishing and entertainment segment made a crisp $2 million (operating income) in the first 3 quarters of 2011 while the rest of the company had a $690 million pre-tax operating loss through 9/30/11. The film unit will certainly have to have a stellar 4th quarter in order to fund the $160 million of annual interest expense resulting from their $1.5 billion of debt. I am sure their employees would also appreciate Kodak's continued funding of its $2.5 billion of underfunded pension and retirement benefit obligations.

 

It is a unrealistic to think that the film unit alone can possibly pull Kodak out of this financial mess. We can only hope that when the dust clears there is some semblance of a profitable and sustainable film business that someone would be willing to acquire or that the ashes of Kodak can be restructured around.

[rossb]

<p> Well Garnier sounds like he knows what he is talking about. I mean he called Kodak and got the scoop. So I am going with the Kodak film is doing ok story. Anyway I still shoot some film and will continue to do so as long as I can. I have never had an issue with buying film. BHPhoto will just send it right away when I need it. My problem is getting it processed. As long as Kodak hangs in there I will hang with them. It's been a lifetime thing for me and I see no reason to quit on them when times are hard. I have a couple rolls of the new Portra film and I should shoot that up over the weekend with the family coming around and all that.</p>

[anand_n._vishwamitran]

<p>The doom and gloom here is way over the top. The world has always been coming to an end.<br>

Let's shoot some film. The new Portra is brilliant. </p><div></div>

[larrydressler]

<p>Amen brother Amen.</p>

[patrick_mont]

<p>If we keep using Kodak products, Kodak makes money which makes Kodak happy which keeps them making the products that we want. </p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>I have found that Hewlett-Packard has been run by very suburban people recently. iPod tattoos, anyone?</p>

<p>Hopefully Kodak's culture and history will uplift everyone who works there. I'd love to work for Kodak, but I'd rather be taking photos! Anyway... it depends whom you listen to (doesn't it always?) but some DPs are saying that film is being used more in high-budget TV production that it was a few years ago. I don't know really as I have no actual contacts there.</p>

<p><strong>Some big movies have been shot on film recently</strong> (all of Christopher Nolan's major projects; <em>Black Swan</em> was Fuji with some DSLRs thrown in). <strong>Kodak does not seem to want to promote that? Hello, Kodak, is anyone home?</strong> I guess they can do another logo change or label cheap VHS tapes with the Kodak brand.</p>

<p>Dear Kodak,</p>

<p>I love film even though I mostly shoot digital. Please keep promoting, making and improving it.</p>

<p>One of your fans,<br /> Karim</p>

[rossb]

<p>Nice produce shot Anand. Amazing quality.</p>

[rossb]

<p>Beautiful shots Les. I particularly like shot number 2. </p>

[jeff_drew4]

<p>To Larry's remarks early in this thread:<br>

Yes, I have diligently been buying film and 120/220 as a priority. To all, I would recommend updating your libraries and get copies of the Anchell cookbook for chemistry formulae etc. Also consider experimenting with developers "other than X-tol" so that when kodak jerks that chain, you are ready for the transitions in home development.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Kodak sold the chemical business and the people who bought it make it now for Kodak and others. It is sold under the Legacy Pro name by Freestyle. You can still get Microdol-X and HC-110R along with D-76R and all chemicals no longer sold under the Kodak name.</p>

<p> Kodak can "Jerk" all their chemicals and they will still be sold just under other names.</p>

[rossb]

<p>I think I am going to give C41 processing at home a try. The labs are all to far away and I think it will prove to be a lot easier and possibly a bit of fun to process my own film.. I think over the weedend I will order a tank and a Tetanol kit and give it a try. </p>

[rossb]

<p> I was looking at BHPhoto and noticed that the Plustek scanner 7600i SE that I have been watching is discounted quite a bit so I ordered one. I will put my C41 processing at home plan on hold until the beginning of the year. </p>

[francois_p._garnier]

<p>Larry is absolutely right concerning chemistry. The Kodak chemistry has been made by special manufacturer Champion for years now.<br>

If you look at the Ilford developer bottles you will find: "Made in Germany". Because the Ilford developers are made by Tetenal for Ilford. That's the case also for many years now. Top quality by special, flexible OEM manufacturers.</p>

<p>Production and availability of photo chemistry is no problem at all. There are lots of manufacturers worldwide. Even some one man / two man companies operating worldwide, e.g. W. Moersch from Germany.</p>